Arena Profile: Julie Barnes

Julie Barnes is the Director of Health Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. With years of experience as a health care attorney, policy analyst and Capitol Hill staffer, Ms. Barnes is a frequent writer and speaker on the American health care system. Prior to her role at BPC, Ms. Barnes served as Deputy Director and later as Acting Director of the New America Foundation Health Policy Program when federal health reform efforts were underway. Ms. Barnes directed New America’s outreach activities to educate industry stakeholders and policymakers about the issues in the health care reform debate and facilitated discussion among the key players to identify areas of agreement. In addition to insurance and delivery system reforms, Ms. Barnes focused on health information technology issues, state reform efforts and legal barriers to health reform.

Prior to joining New America, Ms. Barnes was a litigator and regulatory counsel in the Health Care Practice Group of Crowell & Moring’s Washington, D.C. office. In addition to litigating compensation and benefit disputes, her practice included advice and counsel to managed care organizations, self-funded employers, behavioral health organizations, disease management companies and health-related trade associations on state and federal regulatory and litigation matters. Barnes has expertise in numerous statutes related to health care and employee benefits, including ERISA, HIPAA portability and privacy, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Ms. Barnes is the author of several policy papers, the editor-in-chief of a legal textbook published by the Bureau of National Affairs entitled Managed Care Litigation, and is a frequent speaker for the American Health Lawyers Association and the Governance Institute. Ms. Barnes received her law degree from American University’s Washington College of Law and undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa. She is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia Bars.

Julie Barnes's Recent Discussions

Hiccup or heart attack for health care reform?

This ruling comes as no surprise. When Judge Hudson denied the federal government’s motion to dismiss back in August, he tipped his hand that he would rule similarly on the merits. But even Judge Hudson realizes that his ruling (that it is unconstitutional for Congress to ask individuals to purchase health insurance or suffer a tax penalty) constitutes only a bump on the road to the U.S. Supreme Court. His decision is just one more in the many decisions to come on the health reform law. Other courts – even in Virginia – have upheld the health reform law as constitutional.

In the ongoing courtroom drama about the law, we can look forward to an appeal of Judge Hudson’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit – or perhaps one of the parties will successfully skip that step and petition the U.S. Supreme Court.

There are two things of note about the decision – neither of which is the anticipated ruling of unconstitutionality on the mandate. One is that Judge Hudson ruled that ONLY the individual mandate is unconstitutional. He could have decided that the Medicaid Program expansion was also unconstitutional, but declined to do so. Two, Judge Hudson severed the individual mandate from the remainder of the law – allowing implementation to move forward on health reform unabated. Of course, the individual mandate to purchase insurance does not take effect until 2014 – so really the issue is a non-factor until tax day in 2015, when some individuals who declined to purchase insurance may be on the hook for a tax penalty. This is a very significant part of the ruling, as the health reform law includes no severability clause.

This means, in theory, if one part of the law is struck down as unconstitutional, the other provisions could follow suit. Instead, the ruling affects only the individual mandate provision. As a result, private and public efforts to move forward on developing health insurance exchanges and improving the delivery of health care services will be unaffected by Monday's decision.

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